Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Chilled Melon and Ginger Soup   Chilled soup hesitators, look away now! I was chatting to "J-Zo" (a sibling) about the soup I made yesterday, but once I said the word chilled, she pursed her lips and said, "Urrgh." (By the way, has anyone noticed that no one writes "urrgh" or ""ugh" any more? It's all "ee-uu" with an upward inflection now.) So, anyway, chilled soups are not to everyone's liking. But if you can cope, read on. Ginger is the spiciest ingredient in this soup. Unusually for a recipe by Roopa Gulati , it's the only spice.  Fennel seeds are also used but I'm not sure if they count as a spice - fennel is a herb, isn't it? The other ingredients are a ripe Galia melon, fresh root ginger, white seedless grapes (white? I used good old-fashioned green grapes), the juice and grated zest of a lime, dried mint, Greek yoghurt and a garnish consisting of fresh mint and crystallised ginger. There's no cooki...

Lovage Soup   Today I made lovage soup, the second recipe by Sophie Grigson in The Soup Book that I have used in the last four days. She introduces the recipe with these remarks: "If you don't grow this old-fashioned herb yourself, ask around among your gardening friends or head down to the nearest garden centre to see if they sell it. " As I mentioned in my last blog entry (18th May), lovage now features among the herbs in my front garden. As the spouse left the camera at home, I took some photographs. Parsley, sorrel and lovage in Minnie's garden. Rosemary, parsley and lovage in Minnie's garden.  I had hoped to add chervil to my collection of herbs - there's a recipe for vegetable and chervil soup in The Soup Book - but "Young Stephen" wasn't able to source any for me. At least he tried. Just while I'm mentioning Stephen, I have to reveal that the spouse and the older offspring claim that he has been mention...

Maple-roasted carrot and ginger soup   Well, I'm back in the kitchen making soup after the Baltic holiday. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try any authentic Baltic soups - it was far too hot - but I hope to go back again one winter.Today in Dublin has been very strange in terms of the weather - overcast this morning, then lashing rain, now it seems to be warm and sunny.  I digress. Today I have made maple-roasted carrot and ginger soup.  It contains carrots (lots of them) cut into "roughly little-finger-sized pieces". I like this sort of measurement, even though it requires the standardisation of little fingers. The other ingredients are onions, stem ginger "cut into matchsticks", garlic, sunflower oil, maple syrup, chicken or vegetable stock, optional squeezes of lemon juice, salt and pepper, and lovage.  Sophie Grigson advises that if you can't find lovage (and I don't recall ever seeing it anywhere), use chopped chives to finish.  Having just ha...